St. Kitts and Nevis

February 13...Yesterday was spent on boat all day.  Rummy, shanghai, reading and rain, rain.  Swells were just too big to get to the beach.  Positives were the beautiful rainbows, one behind the other and both ends were right in front of us.  The cloud over Nevis just never seems to go away.  I wonder if one ever does see the top of that mountain.  Waiting for the winds to die which hopefully will be today so that we can move on.

We tried to anchor the dinghy so that we could walk to Sunshines for wifi.  Very deep along the beach but I did manage to jump in and walk for an hour today.  The Four Seasons resort is lovely, they have four infinity pools.

Nevis beach

February 12...Quite chilly last night and this morning.  Heavy rains a couple of time but we remained dry.  Well, Dave didn’t close his hatch on time and was a bit wet.  Huge swells on the beach which will make landing and launching the dinghy a challenge.  Wifi as promised in the bay here is non existent.

February 11 ...Peter and I dinghied in to Basseterre, St. Kitts to get our boat pass to go to Nevis. It took about a half hour. When we arrived the customs officer had gone to look at a boat. One cruise ship was in the harbor and another was arriving shortly. After about a half hour, the customs officer arrived and we got our boat pass and left. Interesting the harbor was not as rough as it was when we anchored there….probably the cruise ship was blocking the waves.

Left White House after coffee and had an uneventful sail to Charlestown, Nevis. Picked up a mooring ball, which is included in the fee paid to the Marina Office in St. Kitts. I walked the town, a very old town and the pictures actually make it look better than it is. There is some rejuvenation going on as indicated by the picture of the police station. It is a lovely building.

Charlestown, Nevis, police station

Charlestown, Nevis, square

February 10...Spent a lovely day at White House Bay, no dinghy dock there but did beach? or rock the dinghy.  Walked over to the new development in process near Ballast Bay.  Not much activity but looked as if a new marina and supposedly a golf course was going in being developed by Christopfe Harbour Development.  This is where the dinghy dock was but needed to go in through Ballast Bay.  Looks as if this will be a long time coming.

St. Kitts, Basseterre, big tree

 Basseterre, St. Kitts, Circus Square modelled after Picadilly in London, UK  

February 9...Tried to contact the dockmaster at Port Zante but to no avail.  They did not answer VHF or telephone.  Didn’t want to take the dinghy off the deck but had no choice.  Found the dinghy dock after going back and forth in the marina several times.  New buildings here, all for the cruise ships.  There was no ship in today…they start coming in on Monday.  Wanted to check in but the customs man wasn’t there so we walked around town a bit and stopped in at Ballyhoo for wifi.  Back to customs and the man had been back and gone again.  Waited this time.  Talked to a couple from Elora and they advised that we leave for Nevis and check in there.  However, as luck would have it, the customs man arrived.  Now began the saga. I filled in the customs form and as doing so, customs man advised that we had to go to immigration at the airport.  We also need a boat pass to sail to Nevis and could not get one until we cleared immigration.  We decided to stay at an anchorage.  We also had to declare the name of the bays on a form.  Then we had to go to the marina office to fill in another form and give them money for port fees, anchoring fees and mooring balls fees.  Harvey the pilot was a laugh.  Off to the airport and luckily we arrived before all the flights came in, otherwise we would have had to wait.  The kind lady at the airport stamped our passports with exit stamps and then wouldn’t sign off on them.  Back to the boat and off to White House Bay.  Mooring balls here with no leads on them but the anchorage is calm and there are no rolly polly waves.  First swim for me in about two weeks and we plan to stay until Monday when we have to go back to Bassterre to get our boat pass which cannot be issued until 24 hours before leaving.  We also were told that we had to check in at Nevis, show the boat card and also check with immigration.  Strange, supposedly St. Kitts and Nevis are the same country!  We should have left and gone straight to Nevis.

RECOMMENDATION:  IF PASSING THROUGH ST. KITTS AND NEVIS, RAISE YOUR Q FLAG, SPEND THE NIGHT IN ONE OF THE BAYS AND CONTINUE ON WITHOUT CHECKING IN.

Approaching Nevis

Passing by St. Eustatia